


Any Random Stranger (A Billy Smith Moment)

by Taz



Series: Billy Smith Stories [1]
Category: Highlander
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2010-10-10
Updated: 2010-10-10
Packaged: 2017-10-12 14:24:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/125797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taz/pseuds/Taz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An Immortal who doesn't have a darkly romantic story to tell? And isn't rich, smart or beautiful? Perish the thought!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Any Random Stranger (A Billy Smith Moment)

_“Trailer for sale or rent…”_

Billy flicked the off radio but Roger Miller kept on singing in his head while he parked the Falcon.

 _“Room to let fifty-cent…”_

He’d seen the sun bleached motel sign and pulled off the highway, remembering the sweet taste of fried clams and 39 flavors of ice-cream--raspberry, peppermint, licorice--but it wasn’t 1965 anymore and the room 7 cost him 29 dollars, nearly all the money he had. He tugged the duffel bag out of the backseat and slung it over his shoulder. The peeling paint on the door was almost same vague grayish tan as the car and the key jammed in the lock. Maybe one of these days he'd get the trunk fixed, but the spare fit behind the passenger seat and he couldn't think of anything in there important enough to pay for someone to fix it.

 _“No phone, no pool, no pets…”_

There was a pool. It was empty except for a few inches of slimy green water at the deep end and the room smelled of stale cigarettes and Lysol. The bed sagged but he threw himself on it, gratefully; Billy and Howard Johnson’s had both seen better days.

 _“Ain’t got no cigarettes.”_

Billy had cigarettes, a soft pack of unfiltered Camels in the pocket of his best secondhand plaid shirt. He lit one, sucked the smoke deep into his lungs, feeling the rush, and he smiled. Fuck the surgeon general. _  
_  
The bed had Magic Fingers and he still had a few quarters but the ripe smell of a ham sandwich someone had left in the trash, reminded him that he'd missed lunch today. Four hours and two hundred miles ago, at the Hob-Nob back in Coeur d’Alene, he’d been sitting at the counter all set to chomp into a Philly cheese-steak double onion and that damned buzz had hit. The outraged bellow of the waitress had followed him as he beat it out the back but he knew better than to stick around. She’d been flirting with him hard but he hadn't lived for fifty years, or maybe it was only thirty-seven (Do you count from when you were born or when you died?), without learning a thing or two. And the thing was--when the buzz hits, get outta town pronto!

No way was he going to risk his life, making friends with fancy poufs who thought they were better than him because they could do things with a sword. Fancy prancers, jabbering about how things were in the really old days, making him want to puke. He'd gone to a hotel with one of them once, a dutchlander, like his grammaw, with scars on his face, yapping about some game—what a pretty boy Billy was how he had to learn to defend himself. _Heidelberg_ _. Shmeidelerg._ Hell, he had been in more danger from the prancy boy than from some stranger—you could die of boredom. Billy grinned. He’d let the guy do him and stayed around long enough to learn that the buzz meant one of them was nearby, where he kept his money, and that if he was real careful, he could, maybe, live forever. Billy wasn't sure how long forever was, but he liked the sound of it. You could drink a lot of beer, smoke a lot of weed and fuck a lot of women in forever.

He knew he wasn’t the brightest guy but he liked to think of himself as a practical man; street smart, quick with his fists—didn’t take no crap from no man—but he was going to need more money and a smart man doesn’t make trouble for himself. He’d driven past the Cue Club down the block. Billy sat up, unzipped his duffle and removed the long case that held his cue and the dutchlander’s sword. A few beers. A few bets. Maybe he could talk some woman into coming back to the room. If not there was Leno. Leno was no Johnny Carson. But then Johnny Carson had been no Jack Paar.


End file.
